Dear Mr. Rattassep,
Thank you for your email, and thanks again for participating in the workshop last week. Yes, your
understanding is correct, I am the DG expert in the Agency, so I hope I can help you with your query.
The quickest simplest answer is that there is no need to have an approval to carry goods that follow the
conditions of any of the sub-paragraphs in NCO.GEN.140 and SPO.GEN.150 (b). Therefore, in your
example, the answer is no, the operator doesn’t need an approval because it is an ELA 2. If ELA 2 aircraft
carries dangerous goods, these goods are exempted from the Part-SPA approval even if these goods are
or not included in the exceptions of Part 1 of the Technical Instructions. Accordingly, NCO operators do
not need an approval to carry goods that are exempted from Part 1 or 8 of the Technical Instructions.
But if, together with those goods, the operator is not an ELA2 operator and carries other goods that are
subject to the Technical Instructions (not excepted by Part 1 or 8), the approval is needed. Therefore,
these should not be understood per se as conditions to qualify for an exemption to Part-SPA.
The same logic applies to SPO. In this case, there is no need to have an approval to carry any of the
goods mentioned by any of the four paragraphs (1) to (4). But carrying goods mentioned in the
paragraphs (1) to (4) doesn’t qualify to get an exception because, but if any other dangerous good that is
not excepted by any of these paragraphs is carried, the approval is still needed.
I hope this clarifies, but please let me know if further clarification is needed.
Regards,
Lia Calleja-Barcena
Dangerous Goods Expert
European Aviation Safety Agency
Tel.: +49 221 89990-5119
Postal: Postfach 10 12 53, 50452 Cologne, Germany
An agency of the European Union
From: Karl Rattassep [mailto:
[email protected]]
Sent: 19 January 2017 09:27
To: CALLEJA-BARCENA Lia <
[email protected]>
Subject: Transport of DG by NCO and SPO operators
Dear Lia Calleja-Barcena,
My name is Karl Rattassep, I am a Flight Ops Inspector from the Estonian CAA and I met you at the SPO
Workshop in EASA last week. As I understood you are the DG expert in EASA, so I thought maybe you
could help me with interpreting some points in the AIR OPS Regulation regarding dangerous goods. The
problem is to understand whether Part-SPA DG approval is needed for certain operations or not.
Excerpt from the Regulation (EU) 965/2012:
NCO.GEN.140 Transport of dangerous goods
(b) Dangerous goods shall only be transported by the operator approved in accordance with Annex
V (Part-SPA), Subpart G, to Regulation (EU) No 965/2012 except when:
(1) they are not subject to the Technical Instructions in accordance with Part 1 of those
Instructions; or
(2) they are carried by passengers or the pilot-in-command, or are in baggage, in
accordance with Part 8 of the Technical Instructions;
(3) they are carried by operators of ELA2 aircraft.
The word „or“ at the end of point (b)(1) is very confusing. It is not clearly understandable whether all the
conditions (b)(1)-(b)(3), or at least one of them, have to be in place in order to make an exception from
Part-SPA approval requirement possible. For example, what would be the case when dangerous goods
are carried by ELA2 aircraft and they are subject to ICAO DG TI in accordance with Part 1? Is Part-SPA
approval needed or not?
I also have a similar question regarding to SPO.GEN.150(b). Do all the conditions (b)(1)-(b)(4), or at least
one of them, have to be in place in order to make an exception from Part-SPA approval requirement
possible?
Look forward to you answer
Best regards,
Karl Rattassep
Senior Inspector of Flight Operations Department
+372 610 3571
www.ecaa.ee | Lõõtsa street 5, 11415 Tallinn
Estonian Civil Aviation Administration